Page 83 of Fractured Fates

“Sure, now you are but if you wanted to be more, I think he’d be up for it.”

I shake my head. “I’m not into him in that way.”

“What? The decent dude who treats you nicely and definitely has the hots for you–”

“He does not!”

“No, you’d rather go for the two older, unattainable and slightly psychopathic guys.”

“Do you think Stone is psychopathic?”

“Honestly, sometimes I think he’s on the verge.”

I stare up at the ceiling. “I’m screwed.”

Winnie giggles in my ear.

“What?” I ask, elbowing her in the ribs.

“That’s your problem. You’re not!”

* * *

Except I am.Well and truly. Because if I think I might get a moment to breathe before my punishment for skipping class is doled out, I’m once again wrong.

When Winnie and I open our dorm room door in the morning to head to the showers, we find a note pinned there. The letters are typed in a deep and foreboding red.

I snatch it off its pin and open it up gingerly.

“It’s a summons,” I tell Winnie, reading the typed-out text inside the folded piece of paper.

“Oh Jeez,” Winnie says, paling. “I’ve never got one of those before. If my mom finds out …”

“It’s bad then?” I ask.

“Being summoned to see the Principal? Yeah, that’s bad. When do we have to go?”

I scan the text.

“Nine o’clock.”

Winnie looks as if she might throw up.

“At least it means we’ll be missing Stone’s lesson,” I remind her.

“And here I was thinking you’d be keen to attend,” she says, managing a half smile.

Winnie unbraids and re-braids her hair and insists on inspecting both our uniforms, straightening my beret for me and sending me to scrub my shoes in the sink.

“We need to look spotless,” she tells me, but I think she’d be fussing like this anyway, simply to distract herself from her nerves. I’m gathering Winnie has never been in trouble before. She’s perfected the art of keeping her head down and staying invisible. Now I’ve come along and landed her in serious shit.

I apologize for the one hundredth time as we walk along the path towards the college mansion and for the one hundredth time she waves me off, assuring me I’m her friend and she’d do it all over again if I needed her to.

“Maybe save that judgment until we find out our punishment,” I hiss as we climb the stairs and make our way along to the principal’s office.

It’s Winnie’s first time here as well as my own and we knock on the door at precisely nine o’clock and wait outside.

Several minutes tick past and we glance at each other anxiously, wondering if we messed up the time or something.